E40: The Art of Living in the Now

UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: The following transcript may contain typographical errors or other mistakes due to inconsistencies in audio quality, background noise, or other factors. We cannot guarantee its precision or completeness. We encourage you to use this as a supplement to your own notes and recollection of the session.

Tami Simon: Welcome to The Michael Singer Podcast, presented by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications. For more information about Michael Singer’s work, access to all prior episodes, and information about upcoming releases, we invite you to join us at MichaelSingerPodcast.com

Michael Singer: Ative, Jai Masters. There’s a state that should not be difficult to live in, but it is, I hope by the time we’re done with the talk, we realize no, it’s not difficult. It’s the only reasonable thing to do. It’s living in the now. We hear about it, be here now, living in the now, all this stuff. Let’s take a look at it. Things have happened in the past, but they’re not happening now. Is happening now is what’s happening now, but things happened in the past. Psychology says that man, woman is a sum of the learned experiences. That’s not true either. The consciousness that’s aware that your psyche, your mind, your heart, your psychological patterns or the sum of the learned experiences, they can’t be wrong because you’ve not had any other experience. The only experiences you’ve had are the ones you’ve had. It doesn’t have to be a physical experience.

It could be reading a book. It could be a dream, it could be a movie, but you experienced it. Well, you don’t know anything about that which you’ve never experienced. Nothing. You know nothing. So if you’re psyche, your mind, your memory, your emotions, your way of being is a sum of your learned experiences. That’s what it is. I don’t have to go into psychology. It’s so logical. It’s ridiculous. If you met somebody yesterday, that’s an experience. You now are a knower of that person, at least to the extent that you met them, okay? And so they left an impression on you. That means if somebody says, do you know George? You say yes instead of no. Yesterday he said, no. It’s that simple. It’s that real. So it is a sum. You learned experience because you had that experience. It made an impression on you and you made it part of your memory, part of your being.

Fair enough, okay, now somebody comes to you the next day and tells you, George, oh my God, you got to talk to some people what he did to them. This is a terrible person. Now it’s some of those experiences I’m asking when you see George again next time, is it the same in there as it was before? That person told you that answer me. This is what it means to be the sum, your learned experiences. Don’t make it math. It’s common sense. It’s real. It’s what you experience every day. Is it wrong? No. Is it right? No, it just is. So every experience you have leaves an impression on you and it becomes part of the sum. Some of them are very minor impressions. You see a cloud go by, it momentarily comes through your senses, but you don’t hold onto it. You don’t make it The summer learned experiences.

If however, the cloud looked like your grandfather’s rocking chair, you tell everybody about it and you go back to the place to hope. You see it again. You made it the sum of your learned experiences. That’s how simple this is. It’s not a deep teaching. It’s the most obvious thing in the world. So your psyche, you know what I mean by your psyche, your emotions, your personality, your ego, your aid and super ego, everything. What is your super ego? The sum of your learned experience about how you’re supposed to behave according to society. If you were never taught not to sneeze in public ever, nothing may, then it’s not part of your super ego. If you’re a mother said, don’t you dare sneeze in public, go to the bathroom, then that becomes a part of some experiences you still could see in public, but you’ll feel guilty.

That’s the super ego. Basically, it is true at your psyche. What I mean by psyche, your thought patterns, your active memory, your emotions, how you react to things, your self-concept. What is your self-concept? The sum of your learned experiences. Psychology says your ego is your self-concept. It’s a concept. What is a concept? Something that’s not real. A concept is a concept. What does self look like? I don’t know what’s to the south. That’s probably warm. You’re developing a concept of something you don’t know anything about. If you’ve been there and they asked you, you’re not giving a concept, it’s real. You experienced it. See the difference? So I think it’s beautiful. That’s psychology says your ego is your self concept. That’s what it is. It’s not who you are. You are in there experiencing things. You’re the experience, not the experience. You don’t have to lea experiences.

You would still be there if you didn’t have that experience. If you had totally different experiences throughout your life, you would still be in there conscious, aware of your being. You are the indwelling being, but these experiences happen and you develop a self-concept about that. Why? We can talk about why it happens. You do it because you need to do it, but you’re doing it. You in there, the doer, the indwelling being, pull this self-concept around itself to protect itself, to know how to behave, to try and present themselves to people. Otherwise you’re scary. Somebody asked, you have a gun. Fully enlightened master. What is the ego? He wrote a book. He said the masquerading self. And that is the absolute truth. You are in there, you’re aware, you’re conscious and you felt the need. We can talk about why later. You felt the need to pull around you, a mask that you could hide behind and present to people and change as different situations change.

Like I said, your personality and your thoughts and your concept of George was different between those two times. You do change, don’t you, based on what the summary learned experiences. You can read a book. Some people read a book and they’re changed. Oh my god, I read the book. I read this book. It changed my life. Okay? If you didn’t read the book, you’d still be there, but your psyche would be different. So basically your ego, which is part of your psyche, is the sum of your learned experiences. That’s how you built your personality. That’s how you built what you liked, how you built what you don’t like. Do you think you decided what you like, what you don’t like? That’s crazy. You had an experience in the past that you didn’t like or you did like the experience taught you. You left an impression.

Yoga will call ’em some scars. It left an impression on you, on your astral body, whatever you want on your mental and emotional being, it left an impression. So now, if you ate something at a restaurant and it was such and such chili and the restaurant was terrible and a roach ran across your food, I guarantee you do not like chili, which has nothing to do with chili. It had to do with the restaurant and the roach, but not to you. Your preferences, your likes, your dislikes are learned just like the little Skinner’s mouse. They’re learned. They’re learned based on the impressions that you’ve had. Does anybody question that? You just all of a sudden there’s not. I want chili. You don’t even know what it is. You had an experience. I don’t like redheads. I do like redheads. I like blondes. I don’t like blondes.

I like women. I hate men. Why? Because you had an experience. I’m not getting married again. Nope, I’m not going to get married. Why? You had an experience it must have had not such good one. Okay? It’s really very simple. So your ego is not who you are, it is the sum of the experience you’ve had that was strong enough impression that you pulled them around you and held onto them. I am the person who played Dorothy in fifth grade. I’m the person everybody clapped when I played this musical at the thing, I’m the person. Everybody walked out when I had my recital when I was five. I’m telling you these things develop your self concepts. I don’t like the piano never did. Well, you did once, but not after that. Do you see it? Do you see that’s what’s in there? And do you understand? Let’s get this down once and for all.

No one has the same thing going on inside their self-concept that you do. Why? Because no one’s had the same experiences, right or wrong. Don’t make anything logical about this thing. So your ego, your preferences, your hopes, your dreams, your concept, your views, your self-concept, but you think about yourself, how you present yourself and so on is the summary learned experiences and no one that ever walked the face of this earth, not now, never will ever did have the same experiences as you did. Therefore, you are very different from everybody else and that happens to be what’s so difficult along with everybody, but the only thing you know is what you know. And so you project yourself onto the people. You say things like, how could you say that to me? I would never say that to you. Well, you didn’t have the experiences I had that had experience I had.

You would’ve said exactly what I said. How could you do that? How could you not do that? How could you forget? How’d you forget our anniversary? I grew up in a household. Nobody made anything out of the anniversary. There’s nothing. It’s a joke that I forgot, but in your household, right? So don’t you dare think that anybody’s like you, not your husband, not your wife, not your children. Nobody is like you, but because you are insecure and that’s why you pulled this ego around yourself. You try to behave in a way that you think people accept you. You present it out there and somebody says, God, I can’t believe you sneezed in public. Oh, I’m sorry I do it again. So you adjust this learned experience because that’s another experience that somebody rejected you. Do you see how you’re molded? I want to know, do you see that your past experiences have determined how you think?

They determine who you voted for. They determine who you like and who you don’t like. Determine who you’re going to marry. Wait, we’ll do it right nowadays. And by the way, anything I teach you, you forget it when you leave. I don’t want you trying to behave based on my saying something. You can be who you are and just be the self and watch. So there’s things called these dating sites. Here’s how they work. They go there and they ask you questions. What kind of person do you like? Do you like what kind of hair? They like long hair. They like short hair. Do they like that? They dislike this food? Do they like that? They like to travel? Do they like that? They like this like this? Okay, guess what? You are not talking about that person. You’re talking about you. You are answering those questions in accordance to the sum of your learned experiences.

Right or wrong, adorable. Whatcha going Fishing for yourself. You are by the way you are fishing for. Find somebody that matches that, but that is your own projection of what you like and what you don’t like, which is some of your own experiences. I very rarely take a breath while I’m talking. You know that. Do you get what I’m telling you? It is absurd. You’re putting down on those lists what you like based on your past experiences and you’re thinking you want to have a relationship with yourself. Well, let’s have a relationship with yourself. Have a good time. Say what you want to say. Hear what you want to hear. Be the way. Want to eat what you want to eat. Do I? Come on man. You can get along quite well. And so basically the sum of your learned experience is a very important concept in psychology.

And I’m telling you, you better wake up as a very important concept in your life because you could have one experience that changed your life. Your parents died in a car accident, your sister, not a miscarriage. Something happened that was strong enough that you’ll never be the same as the rest of your life. Guess what? Look at me. That’s absurd. You were born to grow on this planet. Earth is a place where souls tend to evolve. What if you didn’t have that experience? The way I always tell it like this, you’re 10 years old, you got a 11-year-old sister. You’re riding in the back of the car station wagon and your parents are talking, you’re talking and you’re playing. I spy with your sibling, with your sister or brother. Oh, I spy, I line. I spy a bird, I spy this, and all of a sudden your sister says, I spy a blue car.

And you turn your head and at that very moment, a terrible car accident takes place, blood terrible, and you become traumatized. Could it happen for the rest of your life? You don’t talk ever again. Yes or no? And you’re telling me that at that moment she had said, I spy a bluebird, and you look to the left side of the right, your entire life has changed. You should be embarrassed. You’re the highest species on the planet and you’re telling me that random act of turning your head for one second, determine your entire life, is anybody willing to listen to me? Yoga teaches you the event was real. The fact that you let it affect your entire life, a random event. No, no, you did that. You are in there. You held onto that. You didn’t let it go. You think you can’t let it go.

I’m going to teach you. And yoga teaches you. The deep teaches teach you. Of course you can let it go. Guess what? She’s holding onto an apple. They tell me to let it go. I can’t. She’s holding it. I am holding onto the apple. They tell me to let it go and I say I can’t. That’s ridiculous. I don’t know who’s holding onto it. Of course I can let it go. You are in there holding on to your past experiences. They’re over. They’re over in the true sense of the meaning, which I know. I don’t want to say you don’t want to hear it. They have no meaning anymore. They’re over. You watch the movie. You saw it. You learn what you need to learn. You experience what you need to experience now. Now is happening. That’s what be here now means. That’s what living and now means.

If you’re back there living there, you’re not experiencing, now you’re experiencing there and I’m telling you, there’s not real anymore. It had its atoms. The atoms created themselves. They did all this thing from the quantum field. I won’t get into that today. I I love the fact that there’s nothing there. The quantum physicists tell you they’re just little agitations in a field of energy and it manifests as all of this and you’re getting freaked out because what it did two years ago, why don’t we pay attention to what it’s doing now? That’s the reality of your life. No one will talk to this way. He doesn’t like me. He don’t care about me. He doesn’t have compassion. I have real compassion. I don’t want you to live like that. I want you to be happy. I want you to be filled with joy. I want you to enjoy and experience every moment in your life. I guess I love you. That’s true compassion. If I truly love you, I don’t want you down there wallowing around and I’m not getting into wallowing around and sitting and telling to you. Of course you’re wallowing around. You saw that terrible car accident 43 years ago. Anybody listening who’s willing to talk like this? I am.

Alright, so what you’ve done is instead of experiencing now and working now, guess what? There’s nothing you can do about the past. You cannot not have seen a car accident. You cannot not have this person die. You cannot not have this happen. You cannot not have gotten the job three years ago. You can not have gotten a little zit on your face at the prom in high school. That was 20 years ago. Still, you don’t go to your reunion because people remember it, right? You’re letting this meaningless stuff that doesn’t exist anymore except inside of you. If you had that situation I talked about and you went to a prom 20 years ago in high school, I’m telling you, if you really made a deal out of it because you got so embarrassed, if you go back to your reunion, it will be in your mind.

It’s not in those people’s minds. They couldn’t care less. They remember they’re remembering their stuff. It’s ridiculous. But that which bothered you 20 years ago, you stored it and kept it inside so it’s fresh. It comes back up and you get embarrassed again. And you honestly believe that other people are doing the same thing. It’s just you thinking everybody else is like you and they look at the way you do. Do you understand that? Well, nobody else is like you. I’ve showed you that. They’re some of their learned experiences. Are you listening? I’m freeing you. I’m liberating you from yourself. It’s just, it’s wisdom. You pay attention. So if you are living in the past, you will never know God and I’m not damning you or cursing you. Why? Because God is existing in the present. Those quantum fields, the irritations and agitations in the quantum field that made up the corks and leptons that made up the electrons, neutrons and protons that made up the molecules that made up this aren’t happening anymore.

They’re doing this. So you are so out of tune reality, but showcase everybody else. Don’t worry about it. But do you hear how attitude reality are you that you’re doing that? Okay, you want to just really see it? Go on. Go back to a high school reunion and I’m telling you, if it’s 20 years later, you’ll like this person, not like that person. Remember that this happened and that didn’t happen. Be embarrassed again because this person saw you that way. Yes or no. That is absurd. Those people are not the same. You are not the same. They couldn’t care less that you dropped your pen in math class and people laughing. You picked it up, they don’t remember it. Yoga, spirituality, deep spirituality says, get with the program, get with reality. You don’t want that stuff in there. You don’t need that stuff in there.

What good did it do for you still to get embarrassed by something that happened 20 years ago? Absolutely no good at all for you or anybody else. You should have the ability. You’re the highest species on the planet. Darwin called it adaptability, not just physical adaptability, mental and emotional adaptability, which we’re not very good at. Are we? Come on. And so you wake up and you realize, I got some work to do in here. I shouldn’t have that garbage in here. And by the way, it’s not that every experience you ever had is equal. It’s not even close. So you went to the prom and you didn’t look good. I don’t want to talk about zits because you don’t like that. I can talk about worse things, but I’ll keep it mellow. But something address was torn. You drop something who the heck knows something embarrassed you in that scenario and it left those impressions on you.

You do not need that in there anymore. And I told you not every impression that happened to you is the same. You went to school lots and lots of days and had lots and lots of minutes. That one moment where you drop something under your dress or you’re sued or said something embarrassing, somehow it stayed, but the others didn’t. I always tell you how many white lines are stuck inside of you, the ones you drive past on the road, how many clouds? None. Well, I thought you the sum of your learn experiences. Well, not all of them, only the ones I kept.

I give you the example of the white line. I give you the same examples, says, okay, it’s good for you. Let’s say you’re white line painter. A guy sits on the back of the truck and pulls the little thing that paints the white line or the yellow line. What if he’s not very good at it and they dribble a lot. You’re seeing dribbles on the white lines, yes or no? Okay, and he gets fired. I’m telling you that guy has a thing going about white lines and if he drives down the street and he sees some dribbles, he say, I bet that guy didn’t get fired. Nobody does it perfect. Yes or no. You do the same thing, don’t you? Okay, how absurd is that? So it’s not that everything stays equally when it comes in. Most of it passes right through. I am very analytical.

I’ve experimented with it and I am not exaggerating to that 99.9% of every single thing that ever came your sense and went right through the clouds, the people, the cars, the this, the that. But everything that comes in and goes through except the ones that you don’t let go through, the ones that you can’t handle, it bothers you. You kept it. Now I ask you all the time, if every single thing that ever disturbs you throughout your life, you store it inside of you, what’s it going to be like in there? Disturbed And it is isn’t it’s scary in there. That’s not such a nice place to live. You have to work very hard to get accepted. People like you to feel good about yourself, to look good and don’t get old because you’re not going to like what you look like when you get old. I happen to love it. No serious. I love getting old. I can’t even believe how liberating it is. You don’t have to care what people think about you. You’re old if you sneeze. Yeah, old people sneeze.

Just wait. It’s fun. You dare be afraid of it, okay? You don’t to care what your hair looks like. It’s white, it’s raggedy, you don’t have any, it’s wonderful. But because you can’t handle the thought of not looking beautiful so that people accept you, you got all this stuff going on is you’ve been rejected and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That’s because you stored all this stuff inside of you. If you store all the things that came in that when they came in they didn’t feel good and you say, I don’t like this. Look at me now, this is logical. I don’t like this, so I’m going to store it inside of me so it bothering the rest of my life.

If you go to a restaurant and the food’s no good, do you ask for a doggy bag, bring it home, have a little room in there, bad food and go in there every single morning and taste a little to make sure you remember how bad it was. You don’t do that. But why do you do it with bad experiences? Does it make sense? Why would you store the things that bothered you the most inside of you? They’re over. You got divorced. No you didn’t. You think about it all the time and when you go out on a date with somebody else and you look for characteristics, oh hey, you’re a slurp. You’re a slipper are you? I told you if your divorce was bad enough and his name was Ben and some friend comes up to you, oh, I got this wonderful person you go out with. Oh my god, they’re just perfect for you. Everything. What’s his name, Ben? I have had enough Ben for an entire lifetime.

How silly is that? So your inability to live in the now, it says you’re living in the then and why are you living the then? Because it then still bothers you because anytime you think about it or anything reminds you of it and everything reminds you of it. By the way, if you went through a bad divorce, everything just everything reminds you how terrible that stupid thing was and then the lawyers and the finances and friend tells you something, I’m getting married. Poor thing. Wake up. Yes or no? Do people get like that? Okay, so you’ve ruined yourself by living not in the now you are living in the make believe world of your mind. Let’s not make believe it happened. Everything happened, even how much stuff happened. That’s the other thing I try to get through to that. I know I don’t remember now you’re having an experience.

I hope you’re having a nice one. You’re having an experience. How many experiences are happening right now everywhere that you’re not having 700 quill? There’s experience happening everywhere, all over the world, all over Mars, all over Jupiter, all over Florida, all over the out every single and you’re not experiencing them. So if you’re the sub learn experiences, you don’t know anything because your experiences are statistically insignificant. I minored in statistics call it, right? I love that word. Statistically insignificant. Therefore they have no meaning. They’re just stupid little things. One out of 700 billion you experienced and you built your ego out of that one. That’s a ridiculous thing to do. But you say, well, that’s all I have. Good. You have nothing. Okay, so you wake up and you realize this act of storing the past inside of me, especially the past that bothered me is a major problem.

In fact, it is the major problem. That is why Freud came up with psychotherapy. What’s psychotherapy about? You stored stuff in there and we’re going to try and get it out because it made you a mass murderer. So just take it for yourself. Don’t just think about these extreme situations. You have stored all that stuff inside of you and it is ruining your life. You worry. What do you worry about that things might happen that I don’t like? Well, how’d you decide? Past experiences that I stored inside. I didn’t like them. Like the guy with the white lines, he streams about those white lines dribbling, he hopes he doesn’t ever see that again. And I’m not taking a job painting those white lines. In fact, I won’t Taking a job painting anything ever again, it’s running your life. I added an eye, add the eye to running, ruining, and so you wake up, that’s what it means to be spiritual.

You start by waking up. You’re not going to change it because you listen to this talk, but you can wake up and realize what am I doing with my life? Because I’m a psychic. I know what you’re doing with your life. You’re trying to make sure that the things that bothered him in the past don’t happen again. You’re trying to meet people that would treat you the way you want to be treated and act the way you want them to act and never say to you what you’re, we don’t talk about that around your father. That bothers him. Very good daddy. Psychologically ill. He handle talk. And you look at it and you realize I’m trying to manipulate the present and the future so it either does or doesn’t match my past. Are you or you’re not trying to get what you want and avoid what you don’t want.

Has anybody out there trying to get what you want and avoid what you don’t want? That is determined by your past. So you’re out there trying to manipulate everybody and everything in the current moment and what’s going to the future. So it never is the way you don’t want it to be and it is the way you want it to be. And I’m telling you, those are based on your past. And so you’re out there fighting with reality because you can’t handle things because of your past experiences. So a major, major part of both spiritual, personal growth hold whatever you want is waking up and realizing I did a very dumb thing. I stored every single thing that bothered me throughout my life, inside of me. And if I want to have a nice life, it’s not about getting everybody and everything from now on to not hit my stuff.

It’s hilarious. I got to go to manipulate and worrying and plot and plan and struggle and tense and be afraid. Alright? It’s about getting that stuff out. That’s what spiritual growth is about and it’s not about learning to attract yourself what you want. You’re welcome to do that good as opposed to being depressed, right? Go do it. Do it right. How did you decide what you want to attract to yourself? The garbage is stored inside. A great bean does not do anything like that. Or a great bean does. They wake up in the morning, I wonder what will happen today. I can’t wait to see. It’s like going to Disney World think all these events are going to happen in front of me. It’s like there’ll be hurdles. Like when I run a race at the Olympics, I can work with them and get over them.

This is so much fun. That’s a great thing. No matter what happens all the time, they’re open, they’re experiencing, they’re embracing life and I’m doing their best to play the game that life has given to them and enjoying every moment. And they go to bed at night and they giggle. That was so much fun that they wake up in the morning. How would you like to live like that? You go to work, you have family, you do everything. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with whether you, are you going to work to earn money so you can impress people and buy something that you like? Notice that and that other people will like. Is that what you’re doing? That’s why you’re going to work. You know what great B goes to work to do work. A great B who went to work and put their whole heart and soul into what they were doing all the time would be shocked that they got a paycheck on Friday.

What is this for? Well, thanks. You’re not out there doing things to compensate for your problems, but we are aren’t. We’re out there trying to find relationships and finances and things we can buy that make us better and this and that and all kinds of things because you’re not okay in there. You’re out there trying to make things happen outside that make you feel better. Wonderful. I told you model stuff. Go do it. Why don’t you find out why you’re not okay inside instead? So you can look at life and say, oh boy, I’m on this tiny little planet. I’m sorry. I talk about it all the time. I live on that planet. I don’t know about you, but I’m on this tiny little planet. 1.3 million earth fit inside the sun, 1.3 million Earth fit inside the sun. It’s a tiny little thing, transiting one star and there’s billions of stars.

Why would I have a problem? It’s a very interesting place to live. Would you rather live on Mars where it’s all dirt or Jupiter or Mercury or Venus or it’s all gases. You’re in a very special place. You won the lottery 7 billion times over to having to be on the planet earth. There’s colors, there’s things to do, computers to play with. Oh my god, you can’t do that. Why? Because you stored everything that ever bothered you inside of you. You are now bothered inside because of that. And you have to go out there and try to compensate, make up for compensate with things outside that in essence, what they’re doing is distracting you from yourself. If I fall in love with you, you better keep doing the kind of things that interests me and you’re scared of that, aren’t you? You’re trying to make sure you’re dressed properly and do this and do that inside.

You’re scared and you’re scared. You’re seeing people change. So you better behave in a way that distracts me from myself so that when I’m in your presence, I feel better. If I feel worse in your presence, either say together for the kids or bye-bye, alright? Instead, you sit there and say, I don’t want to compensate for what’s wrong with me. I want to fix what’s wrong with me. I want to be free, liberated soul. I want to be able to wake up in the morning, be excited that I woke up. I’m not afraid of anything. I’m just excited to deal with what life feeds to me. And there is no success or failure. There’s just interacting with the flow of life. Okay? Success and failure to you are in the eyes of other people. You think people judge you. You think people think you’re a failure?

Does anybody care what people think about them? What in the world? I told you that person is thinking of course of some of their learned experiences. How in the world, everybody to like you or think nicely about you? You can’t possibly, it’s not going to possibly happen. And if they tell you they do, they want something from you, it’s not natural. Now if you distract them from their own problems, they will like being around you and you like that. And so this is mess we’re doing with each other. A liberated being says, I don’t think so because that’s going to go on for the rest of my life. You grandmas and parents, they’re really totally happy all the time. No, it’s going to be the way the rest of your life, you’re going to try and fight and struggle to make things be the way you want. Or you wake up, you sit there and say, if I don’t, what if you didn’t have that stuff stored inside of you?

What if you did not have your past? Doesn’t mean you can’t remember things. You have a memory, but you didn’t store it as a problem. The computers have memory. When you want to pull it up, you pull it up, but it doesn’t haunt you. It doesn’t come back by itself while you’re doing something else. Remember last night you did a thing yours does, doesn’t it side your head, right? So you basically wake up and say, I need to get out of this. I need to get rid of this garbage inside of me, not compensate for it, which is all you’re doing. You’re sitting there having these problems inside of you and instead of finding out why you have problems inside of you, you’re trying to see what can I do to entertain myself? Go on vacation, find another relationship, do a drug to drink alcohol, do something to make me feel better Inside the question Yogi asks, why don’t you feel good inside?

Because you made a mess in there. Fine. Why don’t we clean it up? There is nothing inside of you. There’s no super glue, no fly paper. There is nothing inside of you but you. And if you held onto something, you use your will to do that. You have hands in there, you can push things around and grab things, can’t you? And you willfully held this, I will never forgive what you said to me for the rest of my life. It’s going to bother me. Great. Congratulations. What a silly thing to say instead of I realize you got your stuff going on. It’s not personal. Nothing’s personal, nothing’s personal, nothing’s personal. It’s not true that it rained on your birthday of your karma or you did something wrong. It’s just simply not true. You want to know why it rained on your birthday? Go study meteorology your for very fine school and you’ll not find your birthday anywhere in that book.

But you said that, why is that the rain on my birthday? You take it personal. It’s not personal. Why’d you say that to me? Well, I ate pepperoni pizza last night. It made me sick and my mother called me and she said, she’s not going to keep paying me the money that she was paying me. And that all happened five minutes before I met you. And that’s why you get yelled at. That’s why I judged you. And plus you’re blonde. No, no blondes are all stuck up. Have nothing to it has nothing to do with you. It has to do with them. It has to do who they are and some of their learning experiences and they’re just dumping it on you. Can you handle that? Of course not because you got your problems. I have real compassion, real love for you. Real. I want you to be free.

I want you to wake up in the morning and not care what happened yesterday. Like I said, it doesn’t mean if you have worked, somebody asked the other day, what about planning? Are you not supposed to plan if you’re planning because it’s your job to lay things out for the future so they’re orderly. That is what you’re supposed to be doing. If you’re planning that, something’s going to happen, that’s going to bother you. And you’re thinking about how do I avoid that and how I lay out. Now that’s very different, isn’t it? So you can still live a beautiful life, a full life, but you don’t have to store that stuff inside. That’s all I can tell you. And so you get to the point where you understand what it’s all about is getting the stuff out of here. And it’s okay to have therapy and all kinds of things, but in reality, since you’re the one, remember the thing about the apple, if she’s holding the apple, I can’t let it go.

But if I’m holding the apple, how can I say I can’t let it go. I’m the one who’s holding it. You are holding that stuff inside of you. I swear to you, I’ve seen it a thousand times. No, what it is you are holding inside of you. How do I know? Because when it comes back up, you push it back down, don’t you? I can’t believe you said that to me. You better give me a minute. Give me a moment. I can’t handle this. What are you do in that moment? Sure. Swear. Okay, I’m okay now. No you’re not. You just pushed it back down. Do you push it back down or not? And do you hope it will not come back up? And so you wake up and you realize you are in there doing this and it’s ruining your life. The events don’t ruin your life.

You’re inability to handle the event, ruin your life. Can you learn to not do that? Well, that’s spiritual teaching. Yes. Meditate, yes. Do mantras. Yes, do all kinds of things. Yes, I mean it. Okay, but if you’re not doing this, I’m telling you it ain’t going to happen. You going to have some very deep meditation experience. The three week seminar, you’ll do a thing. Oh my god, I had this experience, right? You’re coming back, aren’t you? Okay? You’re coming back. You’re going to go there and somebody’s going to say something or do something and it’s going to hit your stuff and all of a sudden you need to go do something again. Take a vacation if you’re willing to work. Like I said, I meditate. It’s good to meditate, it’s good to do mantras, good to breathe, very good to breathe. Yes, you do these things, but unless you work on getting this garbage out of there, it’s going to stink in there.

And you’re going to do everything you can to get away from yourself. You’re constantly running away from yourself. You can’t handle what’s like in there and you’re afraid it’s going to get hit. You’re afraid it’s going to do something afraid, blah, blah blah. Alright? There is a way to get it out and not put any more in than you can live in the now. I don’t want to get into the future. I don’t need to talk about the future. I’ve talked enough about the past. It determines how you think about the future. What do you want to happen in the future? Not what happened in the past that bothered me. What do you want to happen in the future? What happened in the past that I liked? You’re just projecting your past into your future. The future hasn’t happened yet. You’re making it up in your mind.

Your future’s different, her future and it’s different than it was yesterday. Right away you didn’t make up anything you want. Why? Because it didn’t exist yet. And what you’re doing is projecting into your future, the fears of your past and the likes of your past. And you’re developing what you want to happen in the future. If you work with your past, that doesn’t happen anymore. You’re just bring it on. If you live in the now, that was a happening place. You’re filled with love and excitement and enthusiasm. You’re putting your whole heart into the moment and then that will affect the future. Of course it will if you’re doing really well and serving. And so you’ll do well at your job, but you don’t have to think about it. You should be bringing your consciousness, your energy, your qi, your Shakti into the current moment, totally devoting yourself hardened soul to what work is given for you to do.

Be it a relationship, being a child, be it this, be at work, be it anything. Just put your whole being into it. And where do you see how happy you are? How would you like to be so enthused and excited about anything you do? Washing the dishes, taking out the garbage to helping the kid who’s caused trouble in school. And you’re just so excited to do it because your whole being is there and you didn’t bring your past into it to screw it up. And you’re not afraid of the future. Most they were afraid of the future just like the car accident or this or that, or I’m afraid of getting old. Everyone’s afraid of getting old. There is another life to live the life of reality. I’m a conscious being. I have any spin in this little planet. Middle of nowheres for a few years, Earth’s been here for 4.5 billion years.

How long are you going to be here? 80, 90, a hundred. Give me a break. It’s nothing. And you’re down here making a complete mess of yourself. You couldn’t handle reality. You couldn’t handle the things that happened to you in the past. And like I said, I don’t have to talk about future projecting your past into the future. Do everybody understand that? Is it not true that your dreams and your hopes and your fears are based on what you like, what you don’t like and things that happened to your past are this is some of you learned experiences, but you’re not the semi learned experiences, you’re the consciousness, the willful conscious inside. You’re the one who experienced the experiences you are not the experience you had. You would still be there if you didn’t have the experience. You are thence of the experience. How’s that for definition of self? The experiencer of the experience. Are you willing to be that? That’s witness consciousness. That’s what they mean by mindfulness. But real witness consciousness is I’m in here and I see that what I’m looking at is pretty messed up

And it is the sum of us learned experiences. Your problems are not his and not hers. And this that’s what you’re looking at. Somebody said something mean to you yesterday that you didn’t like and you’re walking down the campus or wherever you are at work and all of a sudden inside of you, I don’t want to see them anymore. Take a different way. I’m going to go on the corridor. I don’t want to see them. Have you ever done that? Have you ever avoided seeing somebody because they bothered you once before? It’s running your life, it runs your life. Is it possible to not do that? Yes. That’s called a liberated being. They’re free of this garbage. Alright, we’ve talked a lot about it. How would you like to be free? How would you like to enjoy every single moment? Even if it’s challenge, but what if it’s scary?

Enjoy being scary. Enjoy watching fear. Enjoy watching embarrassment. Enjoy watching failure. Just be there and watch life. You’re real to the bottom of your being. You’re not willing to experience anything. You’re completely open. You’ll be better at everything you do. Or how do you do this one? You don’t do this by deciding what’s the worst thing you ever stored in there? Go down there and pull it out. That is not a good thing to do. Why? You’ll get neonic. You’ll just be a mess. That’s stuff is down there. And it’s scary was stored with painters coming back with paint. It’s not that you go down there and pull it out. How do you know which one to pull out? They’re all tied together. Do you understand? When you throw stuff down, it’s like computer virus. They all talk to each other. You’re afraid of a snake.

You’s not a snake Once now you see a rope. It’s not a snake. It is to you. Alright? And so just understand it all gets messy down in our subconscious. The first thing you do, and this should make complete sense to you. First thing you do give you advice. I’ve done this for 50 or more years. Don’t worry about what’s down there. Watch it. Notice it. You won’t like what you see. Do you understand that? You’ll not like what you see because it’s a mess in there. You don’t worry about that. Just watch that. But how do I work with myself by not putting any more in there? That’s where you start. Don’t worry about what’s in there. Don’t put more in there. What’s the purpose of working out? Go through three years of therapy of what mommy did. If every day you’re putting more junk in there, you just have to go do it all over again about something else.

So you just start by saying, today I woke up and I’m going to go through a day. What’s going to happen? How do I know? Remember what John Lennon said. Life. What happens to you while you’re busy making other plans? Hands. Okay, so I’m going to wake up. I’m going to practice. Not perfect practice. Going through a day without storing more garbage. That’s all. That’s like learning a sport or learning an instrument. You practice. I know you can’t do it. I know you can’t do it, but you can practice. You can do the best that you can and make it fun. I want it to be like a video game that you’re playing inside yourself. Can I handle what you said? No, I can, but it hurts. Yeah, but I don’t want to store it. I don’t want to store pain. If you store Paine, there’s more pain.

Do you want to store pain? You like pain, then don’t store it. I can’t handle the heat. Come on man. You don’t have to do that. You can enjoy life. You can enjoy the sun. You can enjoy life. You don’t have to do that. So you don’t do that. Use positive thinking. I told you I did it. I say 1972 or three and then I heard alone, it’s hot. There was no air conditioning in my house or the car. And he used to complain him down there, okay? And once I said this is enough, I’m meditating hours a day. And then I come here and he’s complaining about the heat. So I asked him a question, why is it so hot? I remember like yesterday, why is it so hot? And he likes science. And so he said because of the sun. What is the sun?

A star who don’t like stars When you do good, they put a star on your forehead. I mean, which one of you don’t like stars? They’re gorgeous. They’re Orion, they’re nebulous. You are close enough to a star to feel its heat. Did you ever think of that? You’re close enough to a star to feel the heat. You ever seen a picture of a star, this glowing red object with things shooting? Oh my God, it’s so gorgeous. You’re close enough to one of those to fill his heat and you’re complaining he should be going. Wow, that thing’s what? 97 million miles away? And it’s so hot that I feel the heat. You don’t get sunburned, you get star burned. It changes everything. Do you understand that? And you start to be a sun worshiper, like, my God, I love that thing. It’s up there. Instead of complaining, let it help you expand your consciousness.

And no longer you storing this stupid stuff about it being hot. Yes, it’s hot because the sun is there. Use your mind to think about something. Did you know that in the summer earth is farthest away from the sun? How many? You know that that’s the truth. In the winter, the earth is closest to the sun. In the summer it’s furthest away. It’s the tilt on the axis that changes the temperature, not the distance. Well, that’s kind of fun to know. Use your mind for something meaningful. Don’t just sit there and let it complain. You could sit there and say, I don’t want to live in Florida anymore. It’s ridiculous. It’s just too hot. So we’re going to move. I’m going to move to Arizona. There’s rattle. I don’t else. You end up ruining your life by complaining about everything instead of being excited about stuff.

I want you to think about that star out there, that you’re close enough to a star and there’s 300 billion of them in your galaxy. It should blow you away. That means use your mind to help you liberate yourself. Do that with everything. Do with the driver in front of you who’s driving 15 miles an hour below the speed limit. They’re going to turn in three blocks or four blocks. You don’t have to get anxiety limit test. Who has ever talked to the driver in front of them Who has ever not because they don’t hear you. Whatcha doing? What a silly thing to do? All you do is get yourself anxious, get ulcers, get tense and everything. Just enjoy it. Enjoy your life. There’s a line in the new book, living Untethered that Oprah said was her favorite line. It’s as follows. The moment in front of you is not bothering you.

You are bothering yourself about the moment in front of you. Right or wrong. Stop it. Stop bothering yourself. Start honoring and respecting reality. Enjoy it. Say thank you. Give thanks for what? Everything. Now you can’t do with the big things yet, but the big things don’t happen every minute of every day. This stuff does. And so if you keep putting it in there, those are into business management. There’s two types of inventory. Life, one, fifa. Who’s ever heard of those words Last in first out, right? That’s what this stuff is. The latest one you pushed in is the first stuff that could bother you. It keeps coming back up, but then the other stuff can’t come up because it keeps pushed back down. Don’t put more in and I’m telling you by itself, the rest will come up. Your heart does not want that stuff shoved down on top of it.

And it’s the Shakti is trying to push up. I’ve learned after all these years personally, it’s trying to push up so it can flow inside of you and feed you and fill you with love and joy and ecstasy. But you shove this stuff on top of it. So it’s trying to just like your immune system is trying to purify your body. The shakti’s trying to purify your heart and mind. But you’ll let it, you push it back down. So don’t put the little stuff in and the bigger stuff will start coming up. You’ll start thinking about something that happened 20 years ago. You’re driving a new car. People ride me all the time all over the world. I just drive my car. I was doing wonderful. And I started crying and I started thinking about this thing that I hadn’t thought about for years. That’s wonderful.

That’s not a bad thing. That means it’s purifying. That means you have enough room now for it to naturally come up. Let it come up, welcome it. I went from don’t I want to meditate? Don’t bother me. I hated it. For me to, okay, it has to come up. I can tolerate it. Do breathing, do this, do that to being happy that it’s coming up well. I don’t want it in there. And I have realized and experienced over and over again through my life that the more I let it go, the more joy I feel. The more spontaneous enthusiasm and energy and Shakti that I feel because I let go of the blockages. And then you get to the point where not that you can tolerate, you handle it and like it. You honor it, you welcome it. Then you get to the point where you apologize to it for shoving it down there.

It’s an experience that happened in reality. Obviously it was your experience and you couldn’t handle it. So you shove it down into the subconscious. You shove it down to a dark place where it couldn’t express itself. And that energy rotted down there. So you get to the point where you love it, you have compassion for it, you welcome it up, you apologize to it. That’s how you work with the stuff that’s coming up. You wait until you’re ready for that. Then it really comes up very quickly. And then you start feeling, you should feel waves of ecstasy every moment of your life. That’s what you’re capable of. It’s just feeding you. It comes pouring out your different centers just pouring up. You eat something. You feel all the Shakti pouring through you. You see something Shakti pouring through you. You feel the sun shining and your Shakti pouring through you.

You’re a being of great light, of great energy, but you shove this garbage on top of it so it can’t express itself. So you start welcoming the process of purification. You heard the word spiritual purification. That doesn’t mean you don’t swear, doesn’t mean you’ll eat a certain way. It means you purify this garbage that’s just stored inside of you. And if you do, you start to feel God. I mean literally you feel God’s presence, not a concept or a philosophy. You feel this energy flowing through you. And the more it flows, the more you start feeling connection with the whole universe. And you’re a very great being. He just blew it. You put all this stuff inside. Can it all come up? Yes, it can all come up, but not at once. And by the way, I love these teachings because nobody’s telling you to go find it.

It will come up when it’s time for it to come up. You’ll find out that you read a book and then somebody gave you something and then this came up and everything is just, you’ll say, well, I went to a talk and this was just exactly what I needed to hear. At the right moment, you’re going to find out your life is about purification. That’s the purpose of your life and all of life and all the masters and everything will help you with that process. If you stop fighting it and purification will become a beautiful experience. It’s like getting healed. Your body gets healed. Oh boy, I used to be sick. I’m not sick anymore. And you’ll have no problems inside. So yes, something comes up, something human comes up, fear, jealousy, insecurity. It comes up. It pass right through because you didn’t resist it.

That’s what acceptance means. It means this inner state of accepting reality. Reality is I felt fear. Do I have to Not having felt it and push it away? No, no, love it. Experience it. Throw a party, right? So the bottom line of it took five minutes. Truly, the techniques took five minutes. You willing to do it took an hour for you to understand. It’s not about getting what you want, avoiding what you don’t want. That’s trying to avoid yourself. Distract yourself from yourself. It’s about letting life bring your stuff up, say thank you. Go through each day and at the end of the day, spend a minute and seeing where you didn’t let go. And then you ask yourself, do I want this stuck in here bothering me for the rest of my life? That somebody said something or didn’t say something or somebody else got the corner office.

Okay, fine, they got corner office. You feel weird. Fine. Do you really want that in there? And resenting that person, resenting the company and quitting your job, then let it go that night. Just relax, offer it up here. I don’t want this indie. That’s a beautiful thing to do If you’re into God, first of all, the God I talk about ch being too, it’s called reality. Alright? The creator of the universe. And you sit there and you just offer it up. Say, I don’t want this inside of me here. Here, it’s yours. I don’t want it. Alright, so it took a long journey about what it means to live in the now, what it means to live now. You’re not living then and you don’t allow you to live in future. You’re just interacting with the now. It’s a beautiful place and someday you’re going to find out you can trust it.

Not that it will give you what you want and avoid what you don’t want. That it’s perfect. I say that and people, oh, they really don’t like when I say that. The moment right now is the perfect result of all the forces that made it be that way. The moment right now is the perfect result of all the forces from the beginning of time that interacted together and generated that moment that’s in front of you. It is not wrong. It’s not good, it’s not bad, it’s not moral, it’s not immoral. It’s not better. It’s not. It just is. It is the result. But if Hitler wasn’t here, but he was okay and it is the result of everything. The moment now is a result of all the forces that unfolded and interacted to make the creation right now. It’s neither good nor bad, nor right nor wrong, nor better nor worse.

It just is. You’ve heard that That’s zen, isn’t it? Does it mean I don’t interact with it? Try raise the energy and bring beauty and love into it? No, it doesn’t mean that. Of course you do. But first you start by acceptance. If you can’t accept that, it is what it is. You’re just going to be trying to protect yourself from it as opposed to serve it. God. As a teacher, I try to teach you. Imagine going out there in the world and not wanting anything, and not needing anything. But giving your whole heart and soul is the moment that’s in front of you to see if you can do something to raise the energy to serve now for you. Just love an act of true giving. You’re capable of living like that. Alright, very good. Thank you for listening.

Tami Simon: You’ve been listening to The Michael Singer Podcast, produced by Sounds True in partnership with Shanti Publications. For more information on Michael’s body of work and all back episodes, please join us at MichaelSingerPodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening. Sounds True: waking up the world.